July 16, 2010. Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
ARCHITECT'S BOOK ACQUIRED BY YALE UNIVERSITY
A book of designs and essays created for the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial (AGMM) has been purchased by the Robert B. Haas Family Special Collections Library for its Art of the Book Collection at Yale University. The author of the book is architect Edgar B. Papazian.
The book, entitled 'Scaleless: Approaching the Armenian Genocide' was first released in 2005 to the trustees of the AGMM. The 2010 edition has been appended with all of the design work the architect created from the years 2002-2005 for this project, in two distinct yet related versions, as well as other scholarly material and appendices. The book was recently shown in an art gallery exhibition in Portland, Oregon entitled "Book Power" displaying artists' books that address social and political issues.
The book contains an exploration of themes (written and visual) involved in the creation of a design for a museum two blocks from the White House in Washington D.C. dedicated to exposing the Armenian Genocide of 1915-22, a historical event whose factuality is currently denied by the descendants of the perpetrators. It contains the plans to a logically derived, diagram-based spiraling building extension to an extant bank building whose architectural design was meant to capture the attention of passerby and impart the endless suffering of the victims and their descendants via its form and material.
In 2003, Papazian, a New York native, entered into a dialogue about the design of the AGMM with businessperson-philanthropist Gerard Cafesjian, based on Cafesjian's favorable reception of Papazian's response to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) search for the museum architect. Papazian then worked to develop his proposal in 2004 and 2005 under Cafesjian's auspices for the museum board. Due to structural changes on the board beyond the architect's control and knowledge, Papazian's designs were ostensibly abandoned sometime in 2005 or 2006.
The complete 'Scaleless' book (minus art cover and padlock) has also been made available for purchase through lulu.com, a publish-on-demand website. The striking design within it pages is a contemporary response to the cyclical nature of genocide, a process that prevents the transfer the events it contains into historical facts due to denial. Genocide is forgotten (the victims cannot speak of their experiences), and thus comes the next spiral segment and the begetting of another genocide, onward and onward, an algorithm of death. The central memorial void, or husk, would have provided a radically "decentering" spatial experience with its 1.5 million khatchkars, or cross-stones. The design was viewed as an opportunity for an edifice to guide the general public via emotional response to the form and space of the museum, and to speak about genocide as a larger societal ill, beyond the Armenian experience.
Mr. Papazian is a graduate of Columbia and Yale Universities and is an American Institute of Architects (AIA) member. He is licensed in architecture in several states. In previous employment he has worked on several cultural institutions of note, including the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, New York.
The acquisition of the book did not hinge on Papazian's status as a Yale alumnus, but was a coincidence. Jae Jennifer Rossman, Assistant Director for Special Collections at the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library of Yale University, said in response to Papazian's request for comment, "I did not know that you had a Yale connection - that is a wonderful surprise. Your book will have a home in the very building where you studied [Paul Rudolph Hall, formerly the Art and Architecture building]. I chose your work because it falls into two themes which I strive to collect in artists' books: architecture and political commentary by artists. I also wanted to include it in our collection because it deals with a political topic that is not well known -if at all- by many people, especially in the United States."
Mr. Papazian comments: "My education, training, and background made me incredibly excited to work on this project back in 2002-05, and I gave my all to it. I tried my best as a professionally accredited architect to research, execute, and edit per criticism the design as elaborated in this book. The result was -in my opinion- striking, ambitious, and powerful, and while highly pre-schematic (ie. preliminary), was eminently buildable. I feel as though there is still much more I could develop with this project to make it even better and even more appropriate to its site."
"I do not maintain contact with any of the people currently or formerly involved with the project, nor do I make any claim upon or comment about the current plans and the state of the project today. I wish them all the best. However, I do find it encouraging that an institution such as Yale finds the work and the thought behind the 2005 design have the merit to place in their permanent collection."
From the Haas Family library webpage: "Arts Library Special Collections contain a growing number of artists' books. These works take conventions and expectations associated with the book format and exaggerate, subvert, question, or ignore the ways in which the traditional codex looks, acts, and feels. In the words of art historian and book artist Johanna Drucker, they 'interrogate the form.' Artists' books in ALSC cover a broad spectrum of book works, from highly sculptural pop-ups to more traditionally printed texts, and include unique books, multiples and small editions, and occasional trade books which in some way or another play with the notion of what makes a book a book. A blend of historical collections and contemporary book arts offers a forum to examine the book as a construction, both physical and cultural."
Edgar Papazian's architectural firm is named Doon, after the Armenian word for house and home, although his work is contemporary in thought and contains many cultural sources. He provides services for architectural projects of any scale, location, and type, and strives to achieve creative personalized solutions for a diverse clientele. It is a young, emerging practice and has just completed the "Eyebrow House" in Portland, Oregon, among other projects.
Links:
Scaleless Book - purchase & preview: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/scaleless/11780482
Book Power! Exhibition, 23 Sandy Gallery: http://www.23sandy.com/bookpower/artists/papazian.html
Book page on architect's website: http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/archives/scaleless_omnibus_edition/
For further information about the Robert B. Haas Family Special Collections Library, please see: http://www.library.yale.edu/arts/specialcollections/index.html
Doon Architecture page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Portland-OR/Doon-Architecture/122158827818592?__a=5
